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Quote by Pierre Hadot

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The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

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Author

Pierre Hadot
Pierre Hadot

Pierre Hadot (February 21, 1922 - April 24, 2010) was a prominent French philosopher known for his extensive research on ancient Greek philosophy and his exploration of the relationship between philosophy and life. more

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“Pity me, and pardon me, O virtuous reader! You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of a chattel, entirely subject to the will of another. You never exhausted your ingenuity in avoiding the snares, and eluding the power of a hated tyrant; you never shuddered at the sound of his footsteps, and trembled within hearing of his voice. I know I did wrong. No one can feel it more sensibly than I do. The painful and humiliating memory will haunt me to my dying day. Still, in looking back, calmly, on the events of my life, I feel that the slave woman ought not to be judged by the same standard as others.”

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“If I could make my neighbors up, I could love them in a minute. I could make them in my own image, looking back at me with deep gratitude for how authentically human I am being to them—and they to me!—reading poetry to each other, admiring pictures of each other’s grandchildren, and taking casseroles to each other when we are sick. But nine times out of ten these are not the neighbors I get. Instead, I get neighbors who cancel my vote, burn trash in their yard, and shoot guns so close to my house that I have to wear an orange vest when I walk to the mailbox. These neighbors I did not make up knock on my front door to offer me the latest issue of The Watchtower. They put things on their church signs that make me embarrassed for all Christians everywhere. They text while they drive, flipping me off when I pass their expensive pickup trucks on the right, in spite of the fish symbols on their shiny rear bumpers.”

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Book:Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others
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“The truth is that it matters not at all what you think of my life -- but it matters supremely what you think of your own. Judgment is just another cage we live in so we don't have to feel, know, and imagine. Judgment is self-abandonment. You are not here to waste your time deciding whether my life is true and beautiful enough for you. You are here to decide if your life, relationships, and world are true and beautiful enough for you. And if they are not and you dare to admit they are not, you must decide if you have the guts, the right -- perhaps even the duty -- to burn to the ground that which is not true and beautiful enough and get started building what is.”

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“Ecclesiastes makes the… astonishing claim that living well here and now in this world depends on time travel being possible—not to us, but to God…God will retrieve every single injustice, every single time, and every single activity…Knowing that God is outside of time and sees it all and will, in the end, bring to judgement both the righteous and the wicked, stops me needing to be in control of everything that happens to me.”

GodTimeJudgment
Author:David Gibson
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